Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

into the city.

It is a number one agenda. You can always adjourn no matter what during the meeting. So, all right. Yeah, we can recess if we can do everything. Let's kick it off. I'll call to order the Wednesday, March 25th, 2026, City of Battle Creek Planning Commission meeting. Can we get a roll call for attendance? Commissioner Hughes here. Commissioner O'Donnell here. Commissioner Ward Gray. Jess Gray, I'm here. Commissioner Morris here. Commissioner Dennison is absent. Commissioner Motton is absent. Commissioner White is absent. Commissioner Formato here. Mayor Binky

here. Thank you. I will uh acknowledge that we do have a new commissioner this afternoon. Uh Tommy Formato is his name. Hello. Welcome. It's going to be fun. Got to clap. All right. Long as John. Right. Right. Approval of the minutes. This being the January 28th, 2026 meeting. Are there any comments or questions regarding the minutes? Move for the approval of the January 28th meeting minutes. Support. It's been moved by Commissioner Gray, supported by Commissioner O'Donnell. Uh, all those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Opposed? Same sign. Minutes are approved. All right. Any correspondence? No correspondence. No correspondence. We will now move on. We do have one item under uh five here, the mayoral service recognition award presentation. Mayor, are we ready?

All right. Okay, you can

if it go if it goes dark. Just do this again. would be improving facilities throughout the community and who would have thought but I think it's important to realize that things of our downtown central business district complex being constructed renovated seen the hotel and a lot of investment that took place in both those facilities over 50 million. These are good times for the people of good times and I think it's important to recognize when you have someone that served that long appreciate their dedication and we want to thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for all your help. Thanks, John. And good luck.

That was a good thing. That was a good thing.

All right. Thank you everyone. We'll now proceed to the public hearings and deliberations. We do have one item. This being the 2025 planning and zoning division annual report. This report is required under state law and summarizes the activities of the planning commission, zoning board of appeals, the historic district commission and overall planning and zoning operations. Uh this is informal in nature. Uh this will get forwarded to the city commission. While this isn't a typical petition, it is listed under the public hearing section. So we will run a quick public hearing. Um I don't believe we have public, but we'll do it quick. So, I'll open uh the public hearing for the 2025 planning and zoning division annual report, staff report.

So, uh as you've stated, this is um a requirement each year that the planning division prepare a report for the legislative body that details the activities of the planning commission. Um as well we also include the activities of the zoning board of appeals and the historic district commission as those two bodies are also bodies that this division serves. Um if you take a look at your report um following it just um chronologically through um you'll see a description of each board and commission. Um it uh starts off with the planning commission. Um you'll see a roster of the uh members of the planning commission as of the end of the 2025 calendar year followed by a a brief summary of the items that were considered um or evaluated by the planning commission last year. Um you'll notice um as we I think highlighted here the last year or two as we've made various amendments to the ordinance, we have seen obviously a drastic reduction in the need for special use permits. Um and most of that really again we feel is due to just the continued amending of the ordinance to um more closely align it with both the needs of the community and with what the master plan is envisioning. So, um, doing so again is is helping to streamline development. Um, it's, uh, it's good for developers. Um, it's, uh, results in less planning commission time. Reviewing certain items, results in less city commission time. Um, u, we've found it to be beneficial, and I think, um, I'm hoping the planning commission does as well. Um, we have had a slight uptick in resoning classifications. Um some of that is still I think due to um in 2020 when the when the entire zoning ordinance was rewritten and the zoning map was redone. Um there's I think

generally kind of an ironing out period over the the the years that follow that where um um various items will come up or or we'll realize that there there may be um better ways to to treat certain areas. So, um that's likely again just a continuation of that. Um as you move on to the zoning board of appeals, uh we had a relatively quiet year. Um if you take a look at the uh the chart that details the different items that were considered, there were actually only three items considered by the zoning board of appeals last year. one of the items uh required additional information and analysis from the original meeting. Um that item was then approved at the next month's meeting. So that was uh being the sign application for um the Kia dealership. Um relative to recent years, that's um u consistent with what pretty consistent with the number of applications that we had had in 2024. Um but again, if you go back through the five-year period, you'll see a a general reduction in the need for those um for those applications. Um and again, I think I feel like a lot of that is due to again just continued work and tweaking of the zoning ordinance and that's I mean um um that work is done by this body here. So um the historic district commission uh the number of applications was uh virtually identical between 2024 and 2025. We have seen an uptick overall. Again looking back at the five-year period. Um uh we think that's primarily due to the educational campaign that the division has undertaken over the last two two to three years. Um, most of that has been

done through mailers of information to folks who live in or own a business or property in a local historic district. Um, additionally, uh, street signage has been added to, um, each of the street signs that border local historic districts to again just continue to allow folks to be aware of where the boundaries for that for those districts are and when that when they're within those districts. Um, and just firsthand anecdotal information here, I've I've seen a u I feel like a reduction in instances where we've had folks who've maybe gone forth with work without having sought historic district commission approval prior. Um, if you go back three or four years ago, I think there was a uh we've seen a pretty significant decrease in those numbers. So, I think with the elevation in applications that we're actually getting, I think folks are starting to realize that uh that maybe hadn't before that they are in a historic district. And I think we're seeing um again, I think we're seeing folks um being more proactive in working with the historic district commission. And I think a lot of that's a result of the education campaign. Um, as you um get toward the conclusion of the report, there's an other division activity section that just talks about um some other items that maybe don't necessarily fall under the purview of one of the boards or commissions that the city operates and that this division um serves as a liaison to. Um but just a few of the other items that the division is working on. Um we are in the process right now of uh reertifying under uh as a redevelopment ready community. Um so that is an item that's um uh that the planning division is spending a pretty significant amount of time on right now. Um you have as we've already sort of detailed continued zoning ordinance um tweaks and recommendations. U the master

plan update which uh right now is primarily focused around um uh the housing study that's going on. Um if you uh take a look at a section further um there's a description of the grant that the city re received in 2025 from MISTA uh to uh allow for the city to hire consultants to help to direct that process. Um right now we are still um uh we are still working through that um going through the various public meetings and engagement sessions. Um Darcy is here. I don't know if you want to say a few words or just

Yeah, for those of you that aren't familiar with the redevelopment ready communities, um the city has been uh certified for several years, but um recently we had to undergo a reertification and we are in the process of wrapping that up. Now, um these certifications is just what it sounds like. um the requirements that we have to um go through put us in good standing to be recommended by um uh businesses and development that might want to locate in the state of Michigan because we have things in place to be ready for development. Um, one of the things that was new this year, and I will send these documents out to you because I think it's important that you're aware that they're um, available and they are helpful for development. The first one is guide to development and it's a document that takes you through every step that you would need to do if you were coming to the city of Battle Creek to develop on any level whatsoever. and it gives you links to documents and applications that you would need to um fully apply and it gives you uh locations where you actually apply online. Tells you what incentives the city has available. So, it's it's a complete document and how you can come to the city of Battle Creek and uh maneuver through the process. We also um are updating our one of the requirements early on was a marketing plan. I'm going to have you lean back a little. I'm sorry. a marketing plan and that marketing plan had to be updated. They had additional criteria. So, how do we market this community to the outside uh world and bring them into our community not only to develop and do business but also to live here in Battle Creek. So, that plan is being updated right now as

well. We have another plan that talks about public participation. And basically that lays out our goals for how we reach the public for not only um master plans and um big projects that come to the community, but things that we do here at the planning commission with all of our boards and commissions. Um, and when we're doing a big uh uh text amendment based on one of our plans, um, some of them are large enough we're going out to the neighborhood planning councils, putting information on the websites, and using social media to get that information out so people are familiar with those changes. So, that's just a few of the things that we're doing to meet that criteria and we should be um, reertified shortly. Um and then the master plan, um we did do the Lake View District as a sub plan. Um it's it's an update. It will not change the existing 2018 master plan. That plan was just completed in 2018 and it was new. It was uh up for review in 2023 because you have to review them every five years to see if changes are needed. Changes weren't needed in 2023. However, there were um goals in that plan that led us to do the Lake View District Plan so we could move forward with an ordinance for that area and also with the um Battle Creek housing action plan that had a a step in it that um suggested that we should be looking at allowing for different types of infill in single family residential districts. Um, so in order to even look at putting together an ordinance for for that type of infill, we needed to have a a housing strategy and go out strategy and go out

to the community. So, um, those are all things that we're working on now. We do expect to have uh a housing survey that will go out soon for that housing strategy and we'll be sending that out in all of our media. will be dropping off hard copies that will be available to do online and we expect that will be online and ready to go in one month. And then as we get those uh start getting all of the feedback from those surveys, we will hold another meeting and we expect it to be in June. We'll do our final wrapup. We'll provide the uh results of the housing survey. Um, we will have a draft housing strategy plan with all of the information we've heard today and then it'll come before you for final re review and adoption. So, we'll be wrapping that up probably by the time we send out a notice because other communities have 42 days to review the document before it comes to the planning commission once it's drafted. So, that's that's what you have ahead of you. So, um, we look forward to to bringing that forward to you. Awesome. Any further staff report? All right. Any technical or clarifying questions for from commissioners? All right. Is there any public comment? Seeing none, uh we will move on. If there's no further questions or comment or thought from commissioners, uh just a simple motion to accept the 2025 planning and zoning division annual report and forward it to the city commission is what I'll be looking for.

Motion four. I'll second that. It's been moved by uh Commissioner Morris and supported by Commissioner Binkkey. Initially, it was close. Uh any further comment or question. All right, let's vote. Commissioner Odonno, yes. Mayor Ranki, yes. Commissioner Gray, yes. Commissioner Hughes, yes. Commissioner Morris, yes. Commissioner Formato. Yes.

All right, that moves on to the city commission. Thank you all for all of your hard work. Any old business? No old business. Any new business? No new business. Any additional comments by the public? Any comments by staff or commission members? Just wanted to welcome our new commissioner and to thank the staff for um a great report. Thank you for all the work that goes into that. Thanks. Awesome. All right, meeting adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you.